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RSpal1's avatar
RSpal1
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
7 years ago

Do you think that Intel stole the idea of the Thunderbolt port from my Uncle's patent?

(I'm not quite sure if this is the correct thread to post this on so I'm sorry if it isn't)

My uncle (Kirby H Spalding) thought of having a port with an embedded chip controller that would be able to maximize the speed and data of the info with multiple different ways to be able to configure it while working with his company, iAparture Technologies. So they went ahead and made a patent for it linked below. But Intel (and/Or Apple) decided to take that Idea and use it in a different method in which the Thunderbolt port was created.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6899547B1/en(I

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6984132B1/en?assignee=Kirby+H.+Spalding

2 Replies

  • ak6dn's avatar
    ak6dn
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    7 years ago

    Short answer, no. Your uncle's patent has only one claim (the other claims 2-5 are based on claim 1) and claim 1 is a very specific implementation of a physical connector. Could be worked around without much difficulty.